


all things soft and beautiful and bright

by SearchingforSerendipity



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Magic, Patroclus is more important than he knows, what it means to be aristos achaion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 10:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11273589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SearchingforSerendipity/pseuds/SearchingforSerendipity
Summary: “The gods,” she said, “are moonglow and wild tides. It is humanity that is of fire, fickle and fragile, priceless beyond measure. Few know this truth as well as you. Remember it, Patroclus Chironides, and perhaps the Fates will be in your favor.”





	all things soft and beautiful and bright

 

 

 

  
The thousand drachma question: from whence are gods born?

From stories. Campfire tales, whispers in the dark: shadows cast on rapt faces, and the one speaking mouth weaving words of power.

From words. To name a thing is to give it shape, sound, an echo. There is power in speaking and being spoken of. The holocaust of memory, such a clever, fragile construct. Names are spoken with all the urgency in human nature, and in so doing give them power.

Power is such a curious thing. It is in the iron and salt staining the dead grass of Troy’s killing fields. It is in tents where kings sit in council. And yes, in prophecies. Half the reason Cassandra was disbelieved was the glint of power in her eyes that made men uncomfortable. Better for it to be madness.

Power, you see, is not comfortable to hold or to behold. It burns. It purifies mettles and tempers men.

But also: what burns can be a source of warmth. There is power in the shade of a white tent. In clever fingers holding knives, not to kill but to save, dicing plants and smashing roots, removing infections or arrow shafts. There is power in being narrow-shouldered and kindhearted, in coming swiftly to someone’s help.

Agamemnon is king over kings, or so he wishes it to be. Ajax is a mountain-bear of a man, a mountain of muscle and valor.   Odysseus dreams of Ithaca at night, of his wife weaving as she waits for him, and in the day he weaves his own shrouds of deceit and wit.

Achilles is _Aristos Achaion_. This all men know: he is god-born, swifter than the wind. They say he has killed hundreds of men by now, perhaps a thousand. Even his name is lovely. _Achilles_. A name meant to linger in songs for ages.

The question, on which the fate of nations hinge: where do gods come from? Where is the well of divinity, the otherness, the greatness? There is power in names. Surely there is a name for that secret place of power.

 _Patroclus_ , the soldiers say. Sweat on their faces, all of their vitality seeping away in blood and throbbing agony. And yet, hope in their eyes, made visceral by desperation. _Patroclus_ , they whisper to their friends. _The white tent. Take me to the one who learned from Chiron._ Blood around them, blood gushing from them, and they do not pray to the old deities. They have fought and lived for the gods. Now they die, for the gods. It is not Zeus’ name they struggle to whisper with panting breaths, not Apollo Pythion’s, god over healing and plague both.

They say: _Take me to Patroclus so I might live_.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A kingdom can be a fortified city, a small island. A home can be an olive grove or a cave on high, rose-tinted Pelion.

There was once a white tent where dying men went to live or not, under the will of the gods and the clever hands of a man who saw no cleverness in being kind, yet was kind regardless.

Such glory-less work, to saw through sick limbs and comfort the weak. No princely honors for Menotiades. No ewers of silver and copper, no golden armor engraved with great animals of prey. He is no predator, is Patroclus. His eyes are very large, like a deer’s. His hair is as a swallow’s nest, thin and spindly.

Achilles loved him dearly. _Philatos_ , most beloved. The thing the best of Greeks loves best. What a prize is Achilles’ love. Patroclus did not feel worthy of it.

Achilles knew better. This son of the sea, this lion among men. But Achilles was busy with honor, battle. The prospect of eternal glory shone golden in his eyes, sun-blinded. He did not always notice what was under his nose. Patroclus was safety and comfort and all that was good in the world. His love was as constant as the turning of the stars and never as distant. 

No man was left unchanged by the war. Patroclus forgave him that. He had to. He had to believe that in another world, Achilles would have been the first to notice.

 

 

 

 

 

As it was, Machoan was the first to remark on it.

“I saw young Artemisius doing drills on the way from my tent,” he told Patroclus, on one of the few moments of rest between patients. Someone groaned, but it was only in slumber.

“Truly?” Patroclus’ surprise was genuine, as was his pleasure. “I had hoped that he would, but I did no think it would be so soon.”

“His leg has healed prodigiously fast,” Machoan agreed. “I did not think he would be able to run again, in truth, but only this morning I saw him race and jump as easy as anything.”

“Briseis has shown me where the best herbs grow for the poultices and balms. That must be it.”

“It must,” Machoan agreed. There was a commotion at the door of the tent, two men and one more dangling between them.

Machoan could see them over Patroclus’ shoulder, but he should have been the only one. Even so Patroclus was already turning on his heel and rushing over, hands pressing against a gushing red river, head bending to inspect the wound. A sword had gone straight through the stomach. A fatal sentence. The soldier had to have known it, but he had asked friends to take him to the white tent all the same, to Patroclus’ care. His pain relief potions, learned from the centaur Chiron himsef, were well known by now.

Machoan watched, and wondered. His eyes rested thoughtfully on Patroclus’ dark hands, made darker and slick from blood. A fatal sentence, yes. He remembered well the times when such a thing had been the norm. He was a healer. Death was always the norm.

And yet. When exactly had been the last time a greek had died in the white tent? A moonturn, many moonturns. A season or more it had been. More passed. Much of the wood once kept for funeral pyres was given to the women, for cooking, and the smiths for the forges, to the ship captains, for the improvement of their vessels.

When funeral fires rose it was always from the other side of the fields. The smoke clung to the god-built stones of Troy's famed wall, stained it grey and black. 

 

 

 

 

  
Achilles stirred awake all at once. Someone shook his shoulder, insistent little tugs. He knew that grip well, the way it sought his in fear and joy alike.

“Can you hear it?” Patroclus asked, low and urgent.

“What?” A hand reaching for a spear, eyes darting in the dark. Was it an ambush, a raid, a night-terror? Achilles would fight them all.

Patroclus’ head was tilted, as if to catch a distant noise. Achilles, who had better ears than any other mortal, did the same. The night was still, utterly restful. A cold wind flapped the fabric of the tent; the sea sighed in the distance. Nothing more.

There was confusion in his eyes, and such worry that Achilles ached to see it. “I could have sworn I heard someone asking for help.”

 

 

 

 

Zeus is King over the Gods, in divine Olympus. He rules the sky and the stars, the storms and the rains. The lands of men worship him. As they should. He is great. Once he killed his father, the Titan Kronus. The smell of patricide lingers around him.

Legacy. What a funny thing it is. Men had prayed to Kronus once, too.

 

 

 

 

Here is one thing Achilles did notice:

They walked the camp and men bowed to him, looked up to him as they would to the sun. That was right and to be expected; it was of no novelty.

Patroclus was sure to be beside him at all times not filled with battle or healing, and that to was not strange. Men’s eyes went to Achilles first, but they brightened at Patroclus’ visage.

 _Skop!_ they called out, that old nickname an import from Phthia. _Patroclus Chironides!_ And Patroclus smiled, and asked after their health, their wives’, the young children he had helped bring to the world.

The men grinned, made strong again by poultices and patience. See how their arms are swift again, their legs steady, their shoulders ready to taken on the weight of the world. _‘Twas you that sealed up the wound! I did not think I would live: but by the grace of the Gods and Patroclus’ clever knife, I did._

Patroclus ducked his head, always. To be proud was to be Greek, but his was a quiet satisfaction, with no hubris in it.

 _How do you remember all their names, I will never know_ , Achilles would say later, in their own tent. They washed each other off blood that never their own.

Patroclus would look at him, those large eyes, that frowning brow, and kiss him gently. _Someone has to. I remember so you do not have to_.

 

 

 

 

Around the campfire, Achilles and Patroclus were generous hosts. There was storytelling, old histories from Phoinix and enchanting god-tales from Briseis, music and song from Achilles’ lyre and golden throat.

Patroclus kept the fire well stocked, stirring the heat and scattering the aches. Some would call watching over the fire disgraceful for a man, but he liked the dance of the flames, how they flickered against the stars.

“You will hurt your eyes if you stare at the fire too long,” a woman said. He startled. His eyes had been on the fire, and how it fell on Achilles’ curls like molten light.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you,” he said. It was one of women of their camp, the ones he had asked Achilles to save. To his shame he found that her name eluded him. Her face was familiar enough, broad and plain, kind around the eyes.

“Worry not. I prefer to keep to the fireside.” She patted the log beside her invitingly. After a moment he sat.

“You were almost in the shadows,” he pointed out, for she sat at a log at the very edge of the circle of light. Now that his sight had adjusted he could tell the was very young, with a kerchief around her head. Her voice was strange to his ears, and it took him a moment to recognize why. It was not accented not with the half-Trajan, half-Greek intonations the camp women had developed.

“Even in the shadows one might know the warmth of well-tended flames. And you tend very well to your hearth, Patroclus son of Menoetius and Philomena.”

He had to force his lungs to breathe evenly. Phoinix had gone to bed, Briseis as well. Patroclus sough Achilles with his eyes, but he was enraptured with the lyre and the melody, and would not lift his head.

“What is your name?” He asked. No one, not even Achilles, knew his mother’s name. He had half-forgotten it himself.

Her smile was sad, sweetly dimpled. “You know my name, child. It is your own that you do not know.”

Thetis would not ever have been so gentle with any mortal, but this girl-goddess was no Thetis. More powerful was she, among the oldest of the gods, it was said.

Patroclus knew his place. He made to bend the knee. She stopped him with a hand to his shoulder. Her skin was hot through he linen of his chiton. He shuddered. It did not hurt, but the touch of the divine had been known to seat skin and burn bones.

Patroclus did not burn. That would have been an augury, if he had been inclined to see it.

He ought to be afraid. This close she smelled of clover and beeswax, incense and wood-smoke. He breathed in. It was comfortable and comforting, beyond the scope of this camp of warriors.

“I know who you are, great lady,” Patroclus said. A chill wind ruffled the tents, but it did not touch the flames, did not chill his skin. The universe had narrowed to the space between he and the girl-goddess.

“I am no lady, nor so great as all that,” she chided, and even that was without cruelty. His stomach sank all the same. One did not misname a god without fear.

“Forgive me my foolishness, fire-tender. Have you come to speak with Achilles?” He asked.

“No. I would speak with you,” Hestia said. For it was she, goddess over home and hearth, her bare feet, her youthful cheeks. Once an Olympian, she had given her throne to Dionysius for the sake of peace among her family. She, it seemed, was the one among all the gods that remembered they were kin. 

“If you spoke, I would listen,” he said. It won him a small smile, knowing and solemn.

“There is a fire in you the likes of which the gods themselves envy,” she said. “They want it, but can never hope to have it. And so they will see it extinguished.”

“What the gods want always comes to pass,” he said carefully. The idea that he might have something the gods would want was laughable. He had Achilles, to be sure, but only for a little time. Anger came to him. He did not understand what more they could want from him, but he would not relinquish it regardless.

Her eyes flashed, a red flickering like a star in the heavens. Fear curdled in his veins, but it was simply laughter, wry and unhappy.

“The gods,” she said, “are moonglow and wild tides. It is humanity that is of fire, fickle and fragile, priceless beyond measure. Few know this truth as well as you. Remember it, Patroclus Chironides, and perhaps the Fates will be in your favor.”

Im the half-light it was easy to pretend it was not pity that touched her face then. “Do you think you can pretend not to hear them forever?”

Patroclus could not answer. His silence was as a stone; it sat heavy on his chest.

Fingers, small and unfathomably strong, rested lightly against his cheek. Memories of the same gesture came to him, of his mother’s dull eyes and soft skin. Patroclus closed his eyes, accepting the gift for what it was.

When he opened them again he was alone by a pile of wood, the shadowed beach in front of him, the firelight warming his back.

 

 

 

 

 

After that visit Patroclus could ignore it no longer. The voices grew louder everyday, no longer murmurs but screams, yells, pleas.

— _my arm my throwing arm will patroclus save it_ —

— _i don’t want to die please patroclus please_ —

— _an healer i need the white tent patroclus_ —

— _my friend be still we will find you patroclus_ —

— _not me patroclus i can die but please heal him first_ — 

— _please patroclus_ —

— _patroclus_ —

— _patro_ —

 

 

 

 

“Have you lost your wits?” Achilles hissed. Hands fisting his fair hair, feet eating the beach in great strides. He features were a mask of fury. They had been filled with fear before, when he had found Patroclus squatted down on the battlefields, wounded surrounding him and his back exposed.

“ _Yes!_ ” Patroclus screamed, and there was such fierceness in him then that Achilles stepped back. “I am mad, Achilles! Our people die by the droves and you will do nothing! You will have me do nothing!” A gulping breath, the hunching of shoulders. “I can _hear_ them, Achilles. All day long and all night, they ask for me, for my healing, and I did _nothing_ , for the sake of your honor. Your pride.”

 _Hubris_ , that vanity which Patroclus did not understand. Or perhaps he did, too well. Was it not the greatest of arrogances to wish to save a whole army? But there was nothing violent in it.

“Is that all you think of me? That I am prideful?” Achilles asked. Anger at Patroclus was hard to grasp, so rare it was. The hurt ran deeper.

“Never,” Patroclus said. “But I fear that it is all you think of, all that others think of when they see you, and it pains me. You are more than your honor.”

There was silence between them. Patroclus’ gasps did not ease when Achilles touched his arm, but his shoulders lowered, cautiously. Anger faded, fear settled. They leaned towards each other, like trees planted too closely together not to intertwine, branches and roots and all.

“You could have died.” A whisper, soft as a kiss, rich with horror. They had been at war for a decade, but it was now that Patroclus’ death rose up to Achilles’ as a solid possibility. The worst trick the Fates could have pulled on him.

The arms around him tightened.

“I did not die. The men kept me safe.”

They had. That was the thing that had been more wondrous of all. Common soldiers and nobles alike, all of them hurt, all of them ready to defend the healer. Their healer. _Chironides_ _Sure-Handed_ , they called him, for his skill with the saw, the needle, the surgery knives.

“You would have me fight for Agamemnon. After what he has done to me.”

“I would have you fight for the Greeks, for all they have done for you.”

Achilles closed his eyes. “It was not me they fought for today.”

Achilles knew the wheezing sound Patroclus’ made in deep sleep, knew the grooves and scars of his hands. He had noticed how Patroclus became popular with the men — even the kings, who came to like him better than Achilles. This had pleased him. The whole world ought to adore Patroclus as he did. They ought to be gods together, remembered for ever and ever.

The men had loved their golden Achilles. They might love him again, forget fear and resentment. But even if that never came to pass, it was Patroclus they knew. For him they had set aside their pain and stood, stooped and staggering. Though they had been weak men protecting a weaker man, they had been strong together.

He drew back, hands on Patroclus’ shoulders. This face, so beloved, twisted by fear and pain even as they embraced. There were lines around the eyes and the mouth, sings of age and wear, Achilles noticed with a rise of bile. How had he not noticed? What else had he not seen?

Achilles stilled. There was fire in his hair, fire in his eyes. For the first time in too long it did not burn to look at him. Perhaps it was simply that Patroclus' eyes had gotten used to it. 

“I will not fight for Agmamemnon’s Greeks,” he said, stronger now, and something in Patroclus crumpled. But Achilles was not finished. He bowed his head and folded. His knees made grooves on the golden sand as he knees.

“Philtatos. I am yours; my strength is yours, the swiftness of my feet, the ichor in my blood. Yours, as you are mine. I am a warrior: I would eat the world raw if I could. You would heal it.” A kiss to a hand, still and always caked in dry blood. “ _Aristos Achaion_. I would fight for Patroclus Chironides until the end of all things and after.”

Patroclus was all shadow and light against the sand and the waves, all wide eyes. Reverence was nothing new to him, but it ought not to be his. He flinched from the gesture for a moment, before Achilles placed a hand on his cheek. But it was a common touch between them, made sweet by love and long friendship. He rested a hand over Achilles’.

“Do you swear it?” He asked, solemn and unwavering, though his fingers trembled. He felt warm all over, yellow-bright flame to the bone.

Achilles smile was as a dawn, slow and certain.

 

 

 

 

  
The thousand drachma question: what distinguishes the powerful from the weak?

Is it birth? Wealth? Is it words, or blood, or memory? Was the source glory and honor, or where those means, or ends in themselves?

Men are powerful. Men are powerless, peons to the gods, and above the gods the Fates. Both of these are great truths.

What is valued in one generation can be cast down by another. That is the way of men, fast-paced creatures that they are. War is the best of inventions in this fashion. It brings about change that wound never have been otherwise.

The gods are not fair. Should they, then, be named gods?

 

 

 

 

 

A scene, carved in eternal memory, the marble of the universe:

A chariot charging the enemy line. A man in carved armor, spear uplifted, not a one fool enough to approach his reach. The best of heroes, the best of princes.

And behind him, the one he protects. Kneeling among the dead and the dying. Bloody to elbows, guts in one hand, knife in another. His ears are full with the swelling of prayers. His eyes are dark and very wide, clear-sighted.

Around him, whispered gurgles, now weak, now strong with health. A name, for names matter the most for one who will accept no titles.

 _Patroclus_ , the fallen warriors said, given new life by hope, by quick sure hands, _Patroclus has come so we might live_.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
